09 October, 2014

As I mentioned in my Historicon report, I bought 2 pieces of post-apocalyptic industrial wreckage in the flea market. I plan on using them for the forthcoming game Across the Dead Earth.http://www.deadearth.co.uk/
I wanted to touch them up a bit for two reasons: all the ground was painted the same rust color as the wreckage and I wanted them to match my basing scheme.

I started by adding some modeling paste to a couple of bare areas, then added some small ballast on top of it. I also added a few pieces of medium ballast for larger pieces of rubble. I painted the ground areas with Vallejo Flat Earth. I then drybrushed a mix of Flat Earth and White. I painted the areas I wanted to be rubble with Ceramcoat Charcoal Grey, then drybrushed Ceramcoat Hippo Grey and Vallejo Stonewall Grey in succession. I glued on patches of static grass and a few tufts, then sealed it with 2 coats of matte spray.

07 October, 2014

Recently I have been working on 28mm terrain for my Saga games. The bridge pictured below is made by Acheson Creations out of resin. I purchased it at Historicon 2013.

I started out by washing it in the dishwasher at the same time as several Acheson buildings to remove the mold release agent. Next I spray primed it black, then gave it a thin coat of black paint to cover any spots the spray missed.

I gave the wood a heavy drybrush with Vallejo German Camo Medium Brown, then another drybrush of Howard Hues Colonial Khaki. I finished with a light drybrush of Vallejo Stonewall Gray.

The water areas were painted with Howard Hues Bright Blue. I then applied a coat of Turquoise Glaze from a very old bottle of Games Workshop paint from when Coat d'Arms manufactured their paints (late 90s?) to deepen the color. Next I drybrushed Ceramcoat Blue Jay, then a mix of Blue Jay and White.

I painted the dirt at each end, added a few patches of static grass and tufts, then finished it off with 2 coats of Testors Dullcote.

The first few photos are of the bridge alone, then there are some with 4 Foundry Vikings for scale. The bridge comes in 5 pieces: 2 ends, a center section and 2 supports for the center. This piece may also show up minus one end as a pier in a Doctor Who or Across the Dead Earth game.

02 August, 2014

I left Columbia, South Carolina Thursday morning at 7 am and arrived at the hotel
just after 1 pm. It was definitely nicer
to stay at the Hampton Inn next door; it made short trips to drop things off or
take a break possible. After checking in
I made my way over to the convention center, picked up my badge and found my
first game, ‘Necronomawhat?’ It was a
28mm skirmish game for 6 players with various dark age Britain warbands (I
played Bran Mac Morn and his Picts) searching for the infamous
Necronomicon. We played on the Miniature
Building Authority table loaded with great-looking terrain. The rules worked well, the game flowed
quickly and was a lot of fun. Various
Lovecraftian monsters appeared around the table as we searched for the evil book,
and once it was found, factions turned on one another in an effort to claim the
book and carry it off the table. My
treacherous Picts made a late play for it but didn't manage to capture the dark
tome from King Arthur, who ended up it. Great
fun!

View of the table at setup. My Picts are in the lower left corner.

A nasty surprise awaited us in the church graveyard! I decided to skirt around the church and enter from the other side to search for our objective.

I've moved up into the wheatfield. Various monsters are now on the board.

After meeting my friends Mike, Jenny, Keith and Mike upon their arrival from Columbus, Ohio and
grabbing a bite to eat, I tagged along with Mike to his game and filled an
empty spot. “A Very British Battle’ was
set in the fictional 1930s British Civil War.
I’ve never played a VBCW game before but they seem to be popular. My Anglican League managed to enter the
Catholic church first and discover the gold hidden in the crypt below. Unfortunately I was being attacked by
Fascists on one side and Communists on the other. My remaining troops sought refuge with
another faction that had broken through the front of the church and exchanged
gold for protection.

Friday morning I played in the Saga tournament. It featured 4 rounds, each round using a
different scenario from the Saga rulebook.
I played Scots, which are my favorite army and also the first I painted
for the game. I won my first 2 games
(Clash of Warlords and Battle
at the Ford) and lost the last 2 (Escort and Sacred Ground), ending up in 4th
place. The 2 players who beat me
finished 1st and 2nd, and I was the only one to beat the
3rd place player. It was an
enjoyable, well-run tournament.

First Saga game vs.Vikings after turn 1. My Scots are on the bottom. My unit of Warriors in the upper left of the picture have driven off the Viking levies and are about suffer 60% casualties in a fight with Viking hearthguards. The rest of my force went on to kill the Viking warlord and most of his troops.

Second Saga game vs. Vikings as we approach the river. My Scots are on the left. I held off the Vikings at the upper crossing and captured the lower crossing.

Third Saga game vs. Bretons. My Scots are on the bottom. I managed to kill the Bretons and baggage on the right and destroy one of the central Breton units, but suffered heavy casualties in the center and couldn't catch the other 2 baggage units before they moved off the board to win.

Fourth Saga game vs. Anglo-Saxons towards the end of the game. My Scots are on the bottom. I have captured the right-hand hill but was unable to maintain a presence on the left-hand hill.

Friday night I played in ‘They Used Hitler’s Brain…A Doctor
Who Adventure’. I was interested to see
how another GM ran a game with the DWMG rules (http://www.drwhominiatures.co.uk/). The scenario featured an unholy alliance
between Nazis and Daleks, with the Allies and Renegade Dalek factions both
attempting to storm a castle and stop their nefarious experiments. My other friend Mike also signed up and we
had the British Special Forces squads.
It was a fun scenario, with lots of action going on in different parts
of the table. True to form, the Doctor
snuck into the castle at the last minute and foiled the villains’ evil plan. Back at the hotel, we played a game of ‘Seven
Wonders’ which I narrowly won for the first time; the 5 of us were all within
10 points at the end.

I spent Saturday morning running a flea market table,
selling a fair amount but not everything I brought. Mike and Jenny brought a bunch of boardgames
for the table as well. I roamed the
dealer hall in the afternoon, then played in ‘Fireball – Showdown in the Zombie
Apocalypse’. It was an adaptation of the
WWII Fireball Forward rules, which I had read about but never played
before. The scenario featured American
Marines in the Horn of Africa trying to locate an IED and clear the road for a
convoy. The Insurgents (including me)
were trying to stop them and the Zombies just wanted to eat everyone. I liked the rules, they were easy to pick up
and ran well for a convention game. The
addition of zombies made the scenario less real-world and more enjoyable as a
game for me. I don’t play modern games
all that often but this was fun, and the GM and players all had a good time.

View of the whole table. The Marines entered along the road at top left, while the Insurgents entered from the bottom edge.

The Marines are moving towards the trucks to search for the IED but are in danger of being overrun by Zombies.

A close-up of my Insurgents trying to cover the truck with the IED.

Overall I had a great time at Historicon. Wegman's provided delicious food as usual and
the improvements to the gaming areas (carpet, more dividers, better chairs)
reduced the sound and produced a better overall experience. I look forward to returning to Fredericksburg next year.

Stuff I bought:

2 pieces of post-apocalyptic
terrain for use in the upcoming game 'Across the Dead Earth': http://www.deadearth.co.uk/

A 28mm Sci-fi Porta-potty from
Miniature Building Authority, also for AtDE.

Revolt on Antares: an old TSR mini-game, one of my favorites to
play as a kid.

A copy of the 'Guns of Liberty'
AWI rules for use in my AWI project.

6 bottles of paint by Iron Wind,
Howard Hues and Army Painter.

2 Irregular 28mm Highland Cattle
and 2 Pigs for use as scenery in Saga.

A 28mm Welsh Chieftain Gripping
Beast figure won in the Saga tournament.

A Robocop figure (for my son) and
a 28mm Adric (Doctor Who) BTD figure given to me by my friend Cade. I look forward to Adric dying in a game soon (he was not my favorite companion).

A bunch of assorted Renaissance
Ink bases given to me by my friend Jenny.

A 28mm Acheson Creations Large,
half timbered and stone barn with thatched roof purchased during their sale
earlier this year and delivered by my friend Mike. It will be used in my Saga games. I'm waiting for 2 more buildings to arrive so
I can paint them all at the same time.

A 15mm Mongol DBA army by Pass of
the North. I received this in the mail
the day before and didn't open it until I was in Fredericksburg so I'm listing it here. I don't play DBA much anymore, but they are
fantastic new figures and I've always wanted some Mongols.

21 March, 2014

Here are some pictures of the Doctor Who Miniatures Game scenario I ran at Siege of Augusta on 18 January, 2014. All were taken with my iPad. I used a modified version of the 'Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Daleks' scenario written by Crooked Dice (creators of the DWMG rules). It is set during the last 2 episodes of David Tennant's first season as the 10th Doctor, 'Army of Ghosts' and 'Doomsday' while the Daleks, Cybermen and Torchwood are engaged in a life-or-death struggle for London.

Below is the table setup. It was my first attempt at a city game board. There are a variety of buildings, most of which were acquired for use in this game. I used a mix of manufacturers including Demo's Laser-Cut Designs, Ainsty and Paper Terrain. For the base, I used 6 2x2 foot pink insulation boards with a coat of primer, 2 coats of medium gray and 1 heavy wetbrush of light gray. They turned out a bit lighter than I wanted, so I am considering how to darken them a bit. There are styrene strips with a sidewalk pattern lining the streets and painted the same light grey but they don't show up well in the pictures. Perhaps I will try an ink wash so the pattern is more distinct. The TARDIS and the Doctor are visible at the top left.

An early game picture. The Cybermen have set up their machines to convert humans into Cybermen in the 3-story factory in the middle of the board with the antenna on top. The 2 good factions are approaching the factory, the Preachers from the left and Torchwood from the right. The Daleks are advancing along the street on the left. I was short 2 players so dropped 2 other factions (Police and Geezers).

Dalek Caan is picking off humans as the opportunity presents itself. A dead Preacher is in the bottom left corner.

Inside the factory, 2 Cyberman (1 converted from a human captive) defend the 3 cyberconversion machines from Torchwood and the Preachers. The Cybermen had a rough game, they often avoided being killed due to their armor but rolled terribly on their attacks.

A street view outside the factory. A dead Cyberman lies in the street, killed while taking a captive to be converted.

Dalek Caan moves to capture the Doctor.

The last Cyberman vs. a Torchwood trooper and Rose Tyler.

The other humans are going after the Dalek.

Just as the last Preacher (Mickey Smith) got in range of Dalek Caan, an event card brought Dalek Sec in the game. He only stayed for 1 turn, and I don't seem to have gotten a picture with him on the board. His assistance turned the tide in favor of the Daleks.

End of the game. The Cybermen are all dead, but the Daleks have captured the Doctor and exterminated all their nearby opponents. Doubtless the Doctor will devise a cunning plan to escape and defeat the Daleks in the next episode!

I had a good time running the game. I plan on running it again in June at StormCon, a new convention in Charleston, South Carolina. I may make a few changes to the terrain, including adding some signs to the buildings and perhaps altering the color of the boards/sidewalks. When I get the buildings out of storage I will take some individual pictures of them.